Planning Of Final University Stage

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30558, 29 September 1964, Page 1

Planning Of Final University Stage

As part of the planning of the third and final stage of the new University of Canterbury at Ham, the Ministry of Works sent its university project architect (Mr G. D. Miskimmin) to Australia this month at the request of the university. His mission, he said on his return, was not so much as to get ideas as to search out faults which could be avoided.

Mr Miskimmin Was chiefly interested in libraries (often called a university’s heart) and in general lay-out of administration and other greatly-used centres of universities, The third Ham brief includes a library of about 99,000 sq. ft. (some of which would be used for other purposes at the outset), accommodation for arts, law, commerce, and music, and other general facilities. Mr Miskimmin. visited too the universities of Sydney, New South Wales, Melbourne, Monash. Adelaide, and Western Australia, and the Australian National University at Canberra. Marked Contrasts All, he said, had the problems associated with rapid growth of universities everywhere. There were marked contrasts. The Fisher library at Sydney was a happy example of marriage to olderstyle buildings. The Baileau library in Melbourne was the first of the new-look libraries, and others tended to suffer by comparison. Canberra featured the growing pattern of a general studies library plus the Menzies research library for special topics. “University libraries are getting away from the idea of vast reading rooms and tending towards a more informal and intimate lay-out,” said Mr Miskimmin. “Most of the new ones have started with a general library of, say, four storeys with provision for specialist extensions in tower blocks tip to 12 storeys.

“Such tower blocks feature study areas and great resources in book stacks—not storage stacks as we know them but collections freely available for special but not general reference.” Every university faced the problem of making the best use of available ground space —keeping buildings such as the library central to all departments without robbing the site of green spaces, said Mr Miskimmin. All also

wanted the library to be one of the dominant features of the whole. Australia’s newer universities had adopted the Canterbury principl o of peripheral roads with connected courtyards restricted 'to pedestrians near the centre, said Mr Miskimmin; Speed of Building The speed of construction in Australia was impressive, Mr Miskimmin said. While he was there tenders were accepted for £1,000,000 worth of buildings for the new Bedford Park University in Adelaide. They would be occupied at the beginning of 1966. “But it must be remembered that (1) Australia has a vast labour force, arising in part from its immigration policy; (2) Australia has simpler construction because of the absence of earthquakes (“Many people had never heard of a shear wall”); and (3) an easier import situation obviates material delays,” he said.